Let Down
by Gandalf3213
Summary: John truly is sorry for letting Sherlock down. The only thing he wanted to do was finish the case, but bleeding out in a dark alley makes it harder for him to pursue that murderer running out of sight.
1. Chapter 1

_I see two men. Two men, like brothers, not in blood but in bond. **Sherlock Holmes 2009**_

.***.

John was riding the high that only came when he was in his element: performing a difficult surgery while natives were shooting at him, or, more recently, running after the latest criminal Sherlock had pursued into their underworld.

It had gotten to the point where even surgery, which used to thrill him, used to make the blood sing in his veins, was nothing, nothing compared to the sensation he felt when he pounded after yet another scoundrel, chasing them through the dim and grimy streets of London.

He was grateful for the turn his life had taken just a scant few months ago. After Afghanistan, he'd come back to a London that held no family and few friends, a London that he didn't want to be in because he desperately wanted to be back in the desert for a chance to finish his career more honorably than a bullet in the shoulder.

He will never understand what Sherlock sees in him, or why the detective seems to think that he was worthy enough to bring along on cases, to give his two cents in front of the Yard and other important people. After all, he was just a doctor, and though he was a good trauma surgeon he wasn't world class and he certainly didn't have the brain Sherlock had.

But he'd been taught not to look a gift horse in the mouth (or, as his great aunt used to say, 'never sniff a gift fish') and so he'd just gone along with it these months, taking up lodgings with Holmes and accompanying him around London, and if a date or two got ruined by his flat mate's quest for the hunt…well, it was a small price to pay for the feeling of being needed, or at least tolerated, again.

This particular case was nothing extraordinary. No Moriarty pulling the strings, just a simple case of a serial killer who thought he was smarter than the police. He'd murdered four men and two women in under a fortnight. And he would kill again, for indeed he was smarter than the police.

He just wasn't smarter than Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock himself was not running through the streets alongside John. After three days of pursuing the case with little sleep and less food, John had quietly passed out while Sherlock was interrogating one of the victim's family members. He'd woken to Sherlock's disappointed face and the command to get back to Baker Street and rest. He'd gone, feeling thoroughly embarrassed, and had woken up from his nap after a large lunch to a text message from Sherlock.

41 MARCH STREET. ANOTHER WITNESS. LEARN ALL YOU CAN.

-SH

The message was more succinct than was usual even for Sherlock, and John had felt the color rise to his cheeks. He'd been so proud for the small part he'd played in Sherlock's cases, and now it seemed that he was just a nuisance. He grabbed his coat and headed out the door, determined that he would not mess up this small task.

The man waiting for him at March Street proved to be more uncooperative than John had hoped, and ran out the door when John started asking questions about the murders. A clear sign of guilt, and John wasn't going to let his still-pounding headache or fatigue stop him from pursuing what could be the information that would break the case.

He left his coat in the man's flat, though, and therefore could not possibly see Sherlock's latest text message, urging him to stay away from the murderer whose door he'd just told him to knock on.

It was while racing after the man that was a murderer, though John didn't know it, that the doctor had time to think on the fact that he was becoming steadily addicted to the chase. He was pursuing a witness, and that witness had information that would lead to another part of the puzzle, which would lead to another part, until there were enough pieces in place that the mind made that leap of faith and everything clicked, and the pieces were no longer jagged and unrelated at all but merely small parts of a larger whole.

He loved those eureka moments, when the slow smile would spread over Sherlock's face an instant before John made the same connection and his mouth opened wide, his eyes popping as he clenched a fist in triumph.

He was thinking about those glorious moments when the man suddenly stopped dead, turned around, and used the momentum John still had to knock the doctor off his feet.

Now John Watson is no lightweight. He'd sparred with military men and won, and was known at university for his prodigious wrestling skills, but he hadn't eaten in three days and had just run almost a mile at full speed. The punch had come out of nowhere, and once John was on the ground there was no way to avoid the fists and jabs.

And then the knife came out.

This was what John Watson didn't know and Sherlock Holmes had just figured out: there had been two men involved in all those murders that had gone on in the past two weeks. One chose the victims and came up with the perfect time to strike so that there would be no witnesses, the other actually did the dirty deed.

Lestrade and the New Scotland Yard had found the first guy, a mousy fellow who lived in a dingy flat surrounded by computers and comic books. He'd given up his partner within seconds.

But that didn't help John much, because the man, who was surely a maniac off his meds, had already jabbed him in the stomach.

"A nice slow way to die. That's what you get for trying to stop us. We can't be stopped!" The man crowed over John's yell of agony as he desperately tried to press at the wound. His hands, however, were grasped by the murderer who held them in such a grip that that pain began to compete with the terrifying throb of his stomach as it pumped out his life's blood.

"You're a doctor, ain't you? I see you at Barts. A surgeon. Stitch up people who've been in accidents and the like." John snarled and fought, his movements getting weaker as the puddle around him grew.

"Well you can't be a surgeon without those pretty fingers, can you?"

John fought desperately to hang onto consciousness. After all, this wasn't the barbaric dessert, it was a crowded city, and surely someone must hear his yells. But when the knife sliced open his palm he found that he couldn't scream anymore. It was like all the breath left his body as the river of blood began to slide down his wrist, down his arm.

Once before, John had thought that his career as a doctor might be over. Back in university he'd gone to the lake with some athlete mates and they spent most of the winter holidays skating. He was twenty at the time, high on life and assured in his own immortality, as many young men are at that age. When one of his friends, a slight dark boy called Matt, slid through the ice, John plunged in after him. By the time he'd found the other boy unconscious and floating downstream, he'd been caught up in the current himself. He latched onto a branch and managed to get Matt to safety by hoisting the dead weight up onto a more secure ledge of ice, but then the tide ripped him away again and he dunked under the freezing water again and again and again.

He'd woken up in the hospital on Christmas day. Another daring rescue had been attempted by another young man with delusions of immortality, and this time all parties had gotten out of the current alive. But the doctors there had been fearful that his extremities, especially his cut and frozen hands, would be permanently damaged by the adventure.

They'd been wrong then, and John's desire to be a doctor had increased tenfold after his extended stay at the hospital. But would he really be lucky enough to avoid permanent injury again? But then, he _was_ bleeding out. Bleeding on the cold asphalt in a dirty back alley. He, a war hero who had survived terrorists and revolutionaries, would be taken down by a such a useless belly wound...

And suddenly John remembered the look of disappointment in Sherlock's eyes when he realized that the person he'd picked as his colleague was not up to snuff, could not survive on the hunt alone. He remembered the burning shame as he was sent away like a disobedient child. And here he was letting Sherlock down again.

The knife moved closer to his thumb, about to cut off the finger entirely, but John was lost in a world of red pain and was able only to make the smallest movements of protest. Oh, Sherlock would be disappointed…

He sank deeper into the blackness then, and was giving up on hope of life entirely – the streets were cruel, the people ignorant of or ignoring his pleas for help, and, really, there was not many in the world to miss him if he just succumbed to the easy, pain-free darkness. Sarah, perhaps, and a few colleagues at the hospital, but in a year they wouldn't even be able to recall his name. He was too honest to believe that Sherlock would ever miss him. Probably the consulting detective would just find his death a terrible inconvenience.

How he wished he could have wrapped up this last case…

And then the knife was gone, the thumb unsevered, but John was too far gone, too worried about the blood leaking from his stomach, to notice or care much about this small reprieve. It was only when strong, wiry arms grasped his shoulders and he yelled in pain as his whole body was jarred that he realized he was not being manhandled by a murderer.

"Sh—Sherlock!" But he couldn't manage more than that. The darkness was calling him, and it promised an existence free from the throbbing agony he was living in now. Still, he had to implore the man one last favor. "He's getting away!" This last bit was a whisper, and John Watson realized he was dying. He didn't care much.

Sherlock didn't move, and John tightened his grip. "Sherlock, he's getting away." His words were unbroken, but they were merely a breath. He found it suddenly difficult to string his thoughts together. "The case…"

"Hang the case!" Came a fierce exclamation, and John winced at the sound.

John balled one hand in a fist. His bleeding, ruined hand he found, to his surprise, was wrapped in Sherlock's favorite scarf. "I'm sorry he got away, Sherlock."

"Stop talking about useless things, you need to conserve your strength." There were more words after that, spoken quickly and concisely into a telephone, but John couldn't focus on those sounds. The world was turning red and fuzzy, and even the wound in his belly wasn't even hurting all that much anymore.

"I'm sorry I let you down, Sherlock." John said conversationally. He even managed to pitch these words above a whisper. Nothing hurt anymore. "Hopefully your next assistant will be more qualified."

"Nonsense, John, it's just a flesh wound. And you could hardly have been expected to fend off a crazed serial killer that got the jump on you."

"Not quite an 'I'm-sorry-for-sending-you-to-a-murderer-without-telling-you' but I'll take it." Now the blackness wasn't black but a brilliant, warm white, and John felt every muscle in his body relax. Death wasn't so bad. Harry would survive, though she might take up drinking again. Mrs. Hudson would no doubt fuss around Sherlock, but surely Holmes didn't need him, not really. John counted him as a friend, a good friend, but he was almost certain that Sherlock would not say the same in return.

"Don't you dare die, John Watson!" Came a voice from above, but the matter was out of his hands now, wasn't it? And the light looked so warm, so inviting, that he felt himself slipping towards it, pausing only long enough to hear Sherlock say, his voice shaking with something almost like emotion, "What would I do without my blogger? What would I do without you, John?"

Sherlock would figure it out, though. He was a genius, after all. John was just upset that he'd let Sherlock down…

**.***.**

**The end, maybe. maybe one more chapter of sherlock telling john what an idiot he is to think sherlock doesn't care for him. either way, reviews are much appreciated.**


	2. Chapter 2

_It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. **The Adventure of the Three Garridebs**_

.***.

Sherlock was never very good at the whole friend business.

When he was eight, there had been another boy who, like John, had found his methods of deduction "cool" instead of annoying. Sherlock didn't know what to do about James, who would approach him after school and ask if they wanted to solve crimes together. Sherlock did not want to solve make-believe crimes. He wanted to take his bike and peddle over to the university in town to watch a lecture given by a famous professor or world-renowned astrologer or mathematician. He liked to snigger at the things they got wrong.

One day, James, who was not quite popular himself, was getting picked on (or punched, Sherlock, for some reason, didn't remember the exact details of that day, even though his memories of most of his life were razor sharp) by a group of older children. When they saw the _freak_, they made to go after Sherlock, too. So he ran, even though James's voice kept asking him to come back. And, despite the fact that he often thought of that day, he hadn't even felt bad about it. Not then or since.

Or with Mycroft, who was not stellar as brothers go but still cared for Sherlock in his own way. As children, it was Mycroft who used to cover for his younger brother when he snuck out of the house or dug up the neighbor's dead cat to see what its insides looked like. Often, for misdeeds that Sherlock had performed, Mycroft would be sent to bed without supper.

"Why did you tell mummy that you saw George Hubbards digging up the cat?" Sherlock recalled asking one night when he went up to their shared room with a full stomach and Mycroft was studying to take his mind off his hunger.

"Because it's what I'm supposed to do. It's what older brothers are supposed to do, even if they have the strangest little brother in the world."

Sherlock didn't know what to do about this, and ignored it, and eventually Mycroft's overbearing personality created a rift between the two brothers.

But the point is that it wasn't some new thing, this inability to communicate with people who obviously wanted, inexplicably, to have a relationship with him. No, the new thing is that, ever since John Watson had moved in, Sherlock had been working on trying to communicate, to bridge the gap that had always existed between him and everyone else in the world.

Obviously he wasn't doing a very good job.

"What happened, Sherlock?" Lestrade didn't sit across from Sherlock, he sat next to him because he knew that the world's only consulting detective had more important things to think about than attempting and failing to remember the social niceties that were performed in conversations that merited eye contact "Why was Dr. Watson at that house?"

"I told him to go there. Stupid. I didn't know all the facts. I just wanted to be done with the case."

"Why? You get bored between cases. You wear a dozen nicotine patches if you go without crime for ten minutes. I'd think you'd want to make this last as long as possible." Sherlock said nothing, just stared at the receptionist and wondered vaguely if anyone in the hospital new her husband was beating her nightly. "Sherlock, are you listening to me?"

"Yes. I don't try to 'drag out' cases. I'm not a barbarian. I know that there are victims of these crimes who would like whatever emotional closure my answer can bring them. I wanted to be finished with the case because of the toll it was taking on Dr. Watson."

"Anderson told me he passed out while you were interrogating a witness. We're not all super human, Sherlock. Not everyone can survive on an hour of sleep a night and three meals a week."

"I know that."

"Then why are you trying to break you new toy?" Lesatrade asked, exasperated. "You know, I think you were one of those kids who pulled on the girls' Barbie dolls just to see how long it would take for their arms to break."

Sherlock considered telling Lestrade that with twenty pounds of applied force, the arm would come free in two point three seconds, which he had tested in the first grade using Connie Gorman's doll, but then thought better of it.

"I'm not trying to break John," Sherlock said, and found that he was bristling at the accusation.

Detective Inspector Lestrade must have noticed his tone, because he rubbed the back of his neck and sighed loudly. "I know you're not. But if you don't show him some level of affection he will leave. A person can only take so much from a sociopath. It's a wonder the man hasn't gone barmy before now." But Lestrade knew that this didn't entirely explain Watson's behavior. The doctor didn't merely "put up" with whatever antics Sherlock had going on that week – he enjoyed them, studied them, and laughed at them, almost as if he were Sherlock's friend and not just a flat mate that would only hang around for a couple of months.

Lestrade liked Sherlock - there aren't many people in the world who would admit to that, but he liked Sherlock for his candor and bluntness, for his refusal to play by anyone's rules but his own. And perhaps it was because he saw so much potential in what others only viewed of as a freak that he found it so frustrating when Sherlock seemed content to let everything go to hell in a hand basket.

"Promise me you'll talk to him."

"If John Watson lives through this surgery – and there's a good chance he won't, mind you. I know a lot about anatomy and that was a bad wound – then what will I tell him? The man who has killed six people and tried to kill him is still loose and we have no leads because I've been sitting here unable to…to _think _clearly." Sherlock put his hands on both sides of his neck and drew in a deep breath. Why, why couldn't he think straight? Why did his brain keep jumping to insignificant childhood events? Why were his thoughts being colored by _emotion_ of all things?

"He needs you, Sherlock. You're the only one he's got right now."

And Sherlock…found he couldn't argue with that.

John Watson did live through the surgery and woke up fourteen hours after he'd been stabbed in a dirty alley in the middle of London. When he woke, the first thing he noticed was that he couldn't move his hand, his right hand, the hand he'd used to perform surgery and save lives. The hand that had been cut open by someone out for blood.

The second thing he noticed was Sherlock staring at him from a bedside chair. And once he noticed his flatmate, he couldn't look away. It was like a game of chicken, both parties waiting uneasily for someone to blink first.

John did, literally blinking and looking away. He could never remember being in so much pain in his life, not even after he'd been wounded in action, not even in those first miserable days after being dragged from a frozen lake when he was young and naive.

"The man I sent you to interrogate was the more dangerous part of the duo who've been committing the murders lately." Sherlock said, his tone so conversational that they could be talking about the shopping or the weather. "He wasn't apprehended after he attacked you."

John opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again. Suddenly his throat felt very strange, like it was filled with glue and cotton balls and he had to try to swallow and breathe and make noise around it. And his stomach! Clenched up with a sick, cold, slimy feeling that had nothing to do with the gaping hole that had been there hours before. "Sherlock, I am dreadfully sorry. He got the jump on me, I'm afraid."

Suddenly Sherlock was on his feet, with such a look on his face that if John could he would have shrunk back into the darkness. As it was, he swallowed around the mass in his throat as Sherlock's face turned dark and stormy. "Nurse!" He bellowed, one hand to John's side, and John was suddenly aware of something happening, because surely Sherlock's hand hadn't been so covered in blood before...

Five hours after the next surgery, John awoke again. Sherlock was standing this time, staring out a window and muttering to himself. John tried to work up the energy to open his mouth but couldn't manage it. He leaned back against his pillows and waited for a real sleep to take him.

"You're awake." Sherlock barely turned when he spoke, "And I hope you're not going to try to apologize again for getting stabbed."

John managed a slight shrug, feeling his face redden at the mention of his ineptitude. Couldn't Sherlock see? He, John, was nothing, nobody. A war hero, an accomplished surgeon, were nothing compared to the record of the man standing before him. Sherlock could do things that literally no one else on earth could do, and in the brief time John had been involved with him he'd managed to muck things up good and proper.

"Lestrade and Mycroft have both told me to apologize. I'm not very good at that, but you already know…anyway." Sherlock finally turned away from the window, and it occurred to John that he looked disheveled and haggard as the doctor had never seen him before. It wasn't just the fact that he hadn't changed clothes since John had last seen him – there was still some of John's blood on the cuff of a sleeve. No, Sherlock often forgot such mundane things while working on a case. It was more something to do with the way his cheeks were bright and his grey eyes were dull with strain. "I am sorry, you know. For sending you to the house of a murderer."

"That's good of you to say," John said as amicably as he could muster. He really did need better pain killers, "But I should have been able to catch him. It's my fault there's a murderer loose on the streets."

"And it's my fault you nearly bled to death in my arms!" This last was said so fiercely and with so much emotion that both men were taken aback by it. John eyed Sherlock warily as the taller men covered the space between them in two strides. "It's my fault, John, not yours."

He couldn't quite bring himself to say the other things – how he'd started rushing through the case because John's limp had come back, and that only happened when he was near total exhaustion. That when John had passed out something in the pit of his stomach had somersaulted, and his heart had raced as if he were running but he was merely standing still watching the most important thing in his life crumple to the ground, ironically because Sherlock had been working so hard so they'd finish with the case so he could spare Watson. How he was sorry for acting cross when Watson finally did come to, but he was so relieved to find the doctor staring up at him his emotions – funny things that they are – had gotten jumbled, mixed, and concern was so near to anger that the two had become blurred and he'd lashed out.

Somehow, John knew anyway. John always knew.

"It's alright, Sherlock. Why don't we call this one a draw?"

"I believe my screw-up far outranks yours, John."

"Must you always be so competitive? Do something useful and call me a doctor or I might pass out from pain, and obviously you can't be left alone for five minutes. You don't take care of yourself."

"I operated just fine before you came along."

"Then why is your left sleeve covered with my blood?"

Sherlock's hand grasped John's and the doctor squeezed tight, using the slim, strong fingers as an anchor, a safe harbor to escape to when the pain got too much. "Your hand is ruined." Sherlock confessed, the secret tripping from his lips unbidden.

"I've heard that before. It'll turn to rights, Sherlock, don't worry."

The doctor came in and shoed Sherlock away from the bed, then made a small joke about doctors being the worst patients which John was too far gone, lost in a world or red pain, to even pretend to find amusing.

Sherlock watched it all from his position by the window, and made a resolution right then that this would be the one toy he didn't break. He wouldn't let John Watson down. Not again. Not ever again.

**.***.**

**the end.**

**really. a million thanks for the awesome, kind, motivating reviews we got. it's becuase of you guys that there's this extra chapter (which we quite like, to be honest.) so, from the bottom of our hearts: thanks.**


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